Without caring about Junho’s state of shock, Chansung dragged him on board the train. Their seats were in the first row, Chansung took the place by the window and Junho sat down next to him. People kept rushing in, so although he was dying to, Junho didn’t have the opportunity to ask about crazy theories of magic and wizardry, without drawing unneeded attention to them.

When the train finally started to move, it was only half-filled with people, and luckily nobody was sitting in the seats facing them. Unable to hold back any longer, Junho muttered quietly:

“You’re wrong.”

“About what?” Chansung asked innocently, like he hadn’t just blurted out the craziest statement in the world.

“My grandfather was not a wizard.”

“Of course he was.”

“No he wasn’t!” When the woman across the aisle gave him a curious glance, Junho lowered his voice and added: “And I’m definitely sure I’m not!”

“Yeah, you are.”

Chansung’s incredibly calm response was starting to become really annoying, so Junho argued defensively: “Common, if I was a wizard, don’t you think I’d know? Never in my entire life have I ever done anything even close to magic!”

“Hmm... not even made things float in the air?”

“No, of course not!”

“Have you tried to?”

“Ehm, no but…”

Reaching to his pocket, Chansung came up with the train ticket in his hand. “Try to make it float.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Just try.”

Ready to prove the crazy man wrong, Junho stared focused on the ticket. Of course he had no idea how to make anything float, but still he tried to force it with his mind, to move it at least a little bit.

After a while, this ridiculous experiment was starting to get embarrassing, so he muttered defensively:

“See, nothing happened. I’m not a wizard.”

“Hmm… That’s odd” Very carefully, Chansung stared at him. Then his scrutinizing eyes moved up and down his body, until they focused on his face again. “Have you reached puberty yet?”

Blushing completely, Junho couldn’t believe this guy: “W-What’s the matter with you, I’m 24 years old!!!”

“Is that a yes?”

“Uh, OF COURSE it’s a YES. I can assure you, everything is fully grown and works as it should.”

“Strange.”

“Uh, no… There’s nothing strange anywhere, everything is normal.”

“No, I mean, normally the power sets in with puberty, are you sure you’re not a little late?”

“I’m NOT a little late!! I’m just not a wizard!”

“That’s not possible” Chansung replied calmly, and reached for bag of snacks they had ‘bought’ at the train platform.

“Of course it’s possible, people usually aren’t wizards.”

“But you’re a son of a wizard’s daughter so of course you are a wizard.”

“Son of a… what? Why does that matter.”

Like he was explaining to a child, Chansung spoke calmly:

“As a rule, the children of wizards don’t have any powers, it skips a generation, and only moves down to the sons of their daughters.”

“So… the daughters never get any power?” Not able to fight it, Junho couldn’t help being slightly curious.

“Not in wizard families.”

“But…”

“There are also witch families, and there it works the same… Or almost, the power moves down to the daughters of their sons.”

“H-How do you know this?”

“Everyone does. It’s common knowledge” Chansung replied, while indulging on more of that snack he was eating.

His comment made Junho feel slightly stupid, like he didn’t know something he was supposed to, but how could he know when this was just the ramblings of a crazy man. After giving this some thought, he asked hesitantly.

“So… if a wizard and a witch have a baby together, will their grandchild then be like, a super-wizard?”

“Nah, it doesn’t really work like that.”

“It doesn’t?”

Although related, the powers of wizards and witches come from opposite sources, so the strength of the families, cancels out if you will, so their descendants usually have little to no power.”

This all sounded crazy, and a bit complicated, but Junho still got an idea:

“So that’s it, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“I… don’t exactly know anything about my father, so if he was a son of a witch or whatever, wouldn’t that mean that I had no powers?”

“Technically it could be… But it’s not the case.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Park Jinyoung was no ordinary wizard. Even though his powers were toned down, you’d still have more than most, you’d definitely not be completely powerless. Besides…”

“Besides what?”

“You can’t be dusted, so we already know you are a wizard.”

“Dusted?”

“You know… Like what I did with the train ticket before,” Opening up his palm, Chansung exposed a small pile of glittery dust and put his plump limps into a pout and blew it over him, and ordered: “Dance!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not going to dance in the middle of the train.”

“See!” Now he was looking at him triumphantly, “If you were a normal, you’d be dancing your off right now.”

“Isn’t there any other possible explanation?”

“No, only wizards and witches are immune to dusting… And then other fairies are resistant, but I’m pretty sure you’re not a fairy.” Leaning back in his seat, Chansung suddenly seemed tired, maybe making that pile of glitter had taken more energy out of him than he had available, and he muttered: “Besides, you’re the son of the great Park Jinyoung’s daughter, so of course you’re a wizard.”

Contemplating this for a moment, Junho knew he should let the very sick man rest, but he couldn’t help muttering:

“But why don’t I have any powers then?”

“You do,” after glancing at him shortly, Chansung closed his eyes, obviously in some discomfort, “You just don’t know how to access them yet.”

This whole situation was very frustrating. Here Junho was on a train to the South, escaping from some crazy bounty hunters, trying to find a mystical lake, and nothing that this supposed fairy said made any sense at all. But it was clear he was feeling very ill, because his face was completely white, and he looked like he was nauseous, so Junho realized he needed some time to rest.

After a while, Chansung muttered drowsily, “Maybe it was master Park Jinyoung.”

“My grandfather?”

“Maybe he put a spell on you, suppressed your powers, I didn’t know anything like that was possible, but he was one of a kind, so maybe.”

“A spell? Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted you to be able to live a normal life, didn’t want you to get caught up with the other world.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He may have had his reasons.” The way Chansung took a long pause before replying, made Junho think there was more behind his answer than he was sharing with him.

But as much as he wanted to know more, Chansung looked horrible and desperately needed his rest, so Junho had to be patient, even though the questions in his head were making him crazy.

Was anything the fairy said actually true? And if it was, why would his grandfather do that? Why hadn’t he told him about magic and fairies, and whatever other things that might exist? And what did Chansung know he wasn’t telling him? Did he maybe know something about his father? Or his mother? why were the bounty hunters suddenly after him? And if his grandfather had really put a spell on him, would that mean he would never be able to use his powers? Did he even have any powers?

Although his least favorite thing in the universe was being patient, Junho knew that now he had to. Chansung was in no condition to answer anything at all, they needed to get to that lake, as soon as possible, and Junho sincerely hoped it would heal him, like he seemed to believe. He definitely did not want to think about the alternative. So now, more than anything, Chansung needed to gather his strength.

As the thought went through his head, Junho felt something heavy on his shoulder. Looking to his side, he saw that Chansung was resting his head on him. It made him slightly blush that this man he had only met earlier that day was already lying on him, but he seemed feverish and out of it, so keeping personal space was probably the least of his worries.

After a short while of silence, Chansung muttered up:

“Tell me a story.”

“A story? What kind of story?”

“Anything. It’s too quiet. It’s so horribly, horribly quiet, I can’t take it.”

A little surprised at this statement, Junho looked around in the train car. A couple of seats away, four ahjummas were laughing and talking extremely loudly, and across the aisle was a woman with three children, two of them playing, one of them crying. So no matter how Junho tried to look at it, things were not quiet, not even remotely.

But Chansung repeated his request, with a soft: “Please.”

The least he could do was try to keep him distracted. Not knowing what to talk about, Junho ended up telling stories of his grandfather. Not of the great wizard, Chansung seemed to believe he was, but of an old and loving man that carved warriors out of tree branches, and made him porridge when he was sick. Junho kept talking right until he could hear from Chansung’s deep even breathing that he was fast asleep.